If an employee is registered for A-tax, you as an employer must deduct preliminary tax from their salary when you pay work compensation costs. The employees A-tax certificates contains pay deduction information. Please note that employees must be able to provide you with their A-tax certificate upon request.
In the brochure SKV 401 “Tax deductions and employee benefits” (“Skatteavdrag och arbetsgivaravgifter”) which is in Swedish, you can read more about the obligatory rules regarding preliminary tax deduction, employer contribution and special payroll tax duties.
To make it easier for employers to manage employees’ preliminary tax deductions, the Swedish Tax Agency has developed an e-service that is connected to the Swedish Tax Agency's central tax register, enabling access to information about your employees tax information in the form of a response file. The e-service is called “Fråga om skatteavdrag” (“Tax deduction request”) which is in Swedish.
In order to access this e-service you need a valid e-identification. Once you have logged in, it is possible to submit an information request via a query file, and in return retrieve a response file. Before you submit any query files, it is always possible to run a validation test that checks for any eventual formal errors.
The e-service uses the XML file format, which is specified in an XML schema. To ensure accurate processing of requests, ISO-8859-1 characters must be used in the query file.
Please note that it is only the employer/payer or similar, that has the right to request preliminary tax information in regards to their employee. By ticking the confirmation box “Jag försäkrar att jag har rätt att efterfråga och ta del av uppgifterna” (I hereby agree that I have the right to request this information) you acknowledge and agree that you have the right to request this information.
To submit a query, first click on “Skicka in frågefil” (“Submit query file”) in the e-service navigation menu. Then select the relevant query file stored on your computer. Before a query file is submitted, the e-service will run a format validation check ensuring the file is free of any formal errors (see “Query file check” below). If the file contains no formal errors, you will receive a receipt confirming that it has been received by the Swedish Tax Agency.
Should the query file contain formal errors it cannot be submitted to the Swedish Tax Agency, and you will receive an error message.
Queries regarding the next income year can be submitted from 1st of November.
After submitting a query file, you will normally receive a response within two to three days. If your query relates to the next income year, you will receive a response once preliminary tax data has become available which normally would be from mid-December.
To retrieve the response to your query, mark the response file and select “Hämta svarsfil” (“Retrieve response file”) in the e-service menu to download it to your computer.
Response files to queries are saved in the e-service for 14 days. If your query relates to the next income year, the response file will be saved until 31st of January. The response file will be erased after that. If you have not retrieved a response file before it is erased, you can always resubmit the same query once more.
Please note that the Swedish Tax Agency does not provide a dedicated test program for this e-service. You therefore need to validate the query file yourself according to the XML schema. You can also use the e-service to check your query file for errors before submitting it to the e-service. To do this, select “Kontrollera frågefil” (“Check query file”) in the menu. The e-service checks that:
If any of the above requirements are not met, you will receive an error message. Valid income year formats are: